These are six of the most common mistakes I see photographers make in their editing process regardless of skill level. This will cover white balance, getting caught up in your histogram and not spending enough time cropping.
I highly recommend part one of this article, where I cover gentle retouching techniques, saturation control, and how to prevent halos. If you’re short on time, the key is to be more gentle in everything you do. There’s nothing more rewarding than having friends, family or co-workers say “wow” when they see something you’ve created. We tend to fall into the “as much as possible” type to get this done, but it makes our work look a bit overwhelming or extreme since we’re trying to run before we learn to walk.
I will repeat what I said in part one: everything here is my personal opinion. Don’t stop yourself from editing according to the style and way you find interesting. These are just the methods I see most often that I see stand out as poor editing.
White balance
Don’t worry about white balance. As long as you’re shooting raw, which you should be as a landscape photographer, it’s not something you need to think about when shooting in the field. There is so much to learn in photography that the less you have to worry about, the better, especially when you are just starting out. That’s not to say white balance isn’t important, but unlike any other setting made in-camera, you can change it later without any loss of quality. you shoot in raw mode.
I wrote an entire article on white balance in landscape photography which I highly recommend if you want to dig deeper into the subject. White balance should be a tool you use when editing, not necessarily something that needs to be precise or right. Of course, there are soft guidelines or general rules when choosing white balance. If your photo contains subjects that you know must have a certain color like snow, grass, or trees, just be sure not to push those colors outside their reliable range. Are plants exposed to light? Is it snow in the dark? What was the scene like when you were there?
These are questions you can ask yourself to decide how you want your images to appear. Unlike many forms of photography, landscape photography does not require perfect white balance. Take the image above as a typical example. I changed the white balance by a large margin (the values are proportional as this is converted from the raw), but both images look exactly right depending on the mood or vibe I want to show.
Abstract images like the one above can be taken to the extreme to create any style you want. The lack of any recognizable objects means you can change the color to whatever you want without much thought. The big lesson learned here is to use white balance as a tool, not a limitation. It can enhance your images in many ways, especially when you start using local adjustments to apply different levels of white balance.
Chart
I often find people get too caught up in trying to make sure their chart is in the right place it’s “supposed to be”. A lot of educators, especially in the landscape photography space, talk about making sure not to crop your highlights or ruin your blacks. If you’re not familiar with these terms, all that really means is not overexposing or underexposing your image so that you retain as much detail as possible. This is important to follow, but sometimes, I find people limiting themselves because of it, myself included.
Histograms are the best tool for measuring exposure and for making sure we’re capturing all the details we want in our images no matter how well our eyes can adjust. Our exposure meter is reporting. However, it is just a tool, like white balance. Use the image above as an example. On the left is the image I like better. Shadow detail does not exist and the area appears in the shadows. The histogram reflects these choices and shows most of my image weighted in the dark. If I increase the detail it produces a more pleasing histogram such as the image on the right, although I end up restoring the shadow detail as desired so I don’t reduce my black levels , the image will lose its impact.
The key here is to use a histogram to keep your eyes honest, but don’t get too hung up on making sure you’re keeping the perfect detail in your image or your histogram needs to look like a curve. campanulate.
The Crop
Out of the six editing mistakes, I believe this is the area where you can improve your work the most. I don’t think people spend enough time with the crop tool to make decisions about how to present their images. Yes, some of the photos are very simple and the cut ends clear, but I’m referring to the ones that you can’t figure out, the ones that are in your category, staring at you, waiting. waits to come to life, but just not yet because you haven’t figured out how they’re cropped.
I could write an entire article on how to crop your images, but the three main questions you should ask yourself are:
- How does cropping help the viewer’s eye find the subject or subjects of the photo?
- What is important or unimportant in the image?
- Does cropping remove distractions or dead space?
The lesson learned here is to cut on purpose. Experiment with space, movement, and what you want your image story to be. I have received a number of absolutely beautiful images sent to me to critique simply the lack of direction and intent in their crop. Plus, if you’re interested in having the ability to edit your own images by me, be sure to check out the video section of this article. This is something that I’m constantly working on improving myself and trying to admit that sometimes it’s the hardest part of an image, so don’t get discouraged. I spent hours mulling over a decision to cut. It’s worth it in the end as it can push some visuals to the next level; it just needs patience.
I hope this two-part series has been helpful, and I’d love to know your thoughts below. Is there an area where you are struggling? What common mistakes do you notice in your work or in the work of others?
